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Health code inspections aren’t something to take lightly as they
can have repercussions for your business.

If you want to make the health inspector happy every time as
well as your customers, don’t make these restaurant health code
violations.

In this article, we look at some common mistakes and ways to
avoid them.

Common Health Code Violations

There are many common issues that you can steer clear of with a
little training and effort.

Personal Hygiene: How clean are your employees? Are they
wearing gloves and hairnets? Do they have their cell phones nearby
(they shouldn’t because they are germ-filled)? Teach your employees
how to wash their hands. This means for a good 20 seconds up to the
elbows and under the fingernails. In addition, your cooks should
wear clean uniforms daily.

Food Storage: Cross contamination is your enemy. If your food
storage isn’t controlled well, you will violate the health code.
This happens most commonly when juices from one food item drip on
another. For example, if beef drips on chicken, you’ll need to toss
both. Store like items together, but if you’re storing vertically
in a walk-in, always put veggies on the top, followed by cooked
veggies, cooked meats, cooked seafood, raw seafood, raw beef, raw
pork, and then raw chicken.

Cross Contamination: This can happen in more areas than food
storage. For example, if your chef throws three burgers on the
grill and then goes over to cut lettuce without washing his hands,
you are in violation. Always use different cutting boards for raw
meat and veggies and have hand-wash stations available.

Time and Temperature: know what foods are safe at room
temperature and what foods should be refrigerated. For example,
mayonnaise should be refrigerated. But, do you know how long it can
last there? Always keep cold foods below 40 degrees and hot foods
above 140 degrees. All foods need to be refrigerated after a
certain amount of time out on a counter.

Storage and Use of Chemicals: What are you using to clean your
kitchen surfaces? Are they reusing cloths? Are they trained on your
particular cleaning chemicals? Where are they being stored? Your
health inspector has very specific rules on these. Make sure your
team knows how to sanitize a surface the right way and then store
the chemicals (hint: not near food).

Storage of Plates, Glasses, and Silverware: None of this should
be near food. In addition, everything must be stored upside down
and silverware stored covered. Instruct your staff to only store
the handles, rims, and stems. They should never touch a utensil
where a diner would.

Now let’s look at that health inspection.

Things to Know Before a Health Inspection

You’ll find in most cities that your local health department
will conduct health inspections anywhere from once to four times a
year.

You want to be prepared every time by following the regulations
every day of the year.

But, if you know your time is up, and the health inspector is on
the way, review the regulations and your food standards to make
sure you are protecting your restaurant.

How to Prepare for the Health Inspection

You can use a tool called the HACCP
(Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points Plan) to prepare for
your health inspection.

By using this system, you can identify points in your cooking
process and kitchen areas where the risk of contamination is the
greatest. In addition to the HACCP plan, you can take some
additional steps to get ready.

If you don’t know, check with your local health department for
the regulations
and forms so you know just what the health inspector is looking for
when he or she arrives.

Do your own random inspections and don’t tell your staff when
you’re doing it. Because the health department can show up
un-announced, this is good practice for both you and your
team.

Once you do your own random inspection, schedule a meeting with
your employees
and make sure they know what wouldn’t pass and how to fix it.

Do random quizzes with your staff. Ask safety questions and
find out if they know the regulations as well as you do. Do they
know, for example, you can’t store chicken and vegetables in the
same containers?

Continue to evaluate your staff. They are on the front lines
and initially responsible for staying up to date on the
regulations. Make sure to continue random inspections and
quizzes.

Train your staff so they are clear on
what is and what isn’t a violation.

Dos and Don’ts During the Inspection

Because anyone can pretend to be a health inspector, make sure
you verify your inspector’s credentials. In most instances this
person will volunteer them to you before you ask. If you are
unsure, call the health department to verify. (tweet this)

Always be respectful of the health inspector. Treat this person
as you would any guest in your restaurant. Give this person full
access to your restaurant and space to do his/her work.

Stay with the inspector so you can view any violations. You may
be able to correct some of your violations immediately, which is a
bonus for you. Your health inspector will record this as fixed on
the spot, so you aren’t getting an out of compliance score.

If you don’t understand the violation, ask for more information.
Try not to be argumentative. Use your conflict resolution skills to
get more information so you can resolve any issues.

After the Inspection

You will get an inspection report from the health inspector,
usually with grades attached.

Read this report very carefully. Go over it with your staff.
Then, fix all of the violations you had immediately.

Your local newspaper often reports these violations (and its
online version), so you want to make sure you fix them, so
customers will keep showing up at your door.

While you can correct some of these immediately during the
inspection, others may take you a bit longer. They may also require
a re-inspection. So, don’t let too much time go in between the
first inspection and the re-inspection. (tweet this)

If you had to change some things and were in violation be sure
to provide ongoing training to your food staff. Verbal training as
well as signs everywhere can help.

To Conclude

You can bet your customers don’t want to eat in a dirty or
otherwise unsatisfactory restaurant.

If you have any violations, fix them straight away. Make sure
you know how each violation occurred and why. Talk to the offending
staff members.

And, as we mentioned before, continue with your own ongoing
surprise inspections.

Finally, if you don’t agree with a violation, you can always
appeal it.

Take your health inspections as learning opportunities. After
all, you don’t want to spread illness, and you want your customers
to be safe.

By avoiding common health code violations, you can help solidify
your success.

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